My problem is that owners are drafting far fewer PAs than they should, playing players fatgiued to 12-18% above their PAs/162 and see little to no performance drop off playing fatigued players. Owners who do not manage their fatigue properly should not get quality performances from players that are fatigued. It runs contrary to reality.

Plus, when you combine cost savings of drafting higher OPS players with fewer PAs/162 and no real need to draft or pay for bench, owners who use this fatigue strategy are using a loophole to take advantage of the system. You are correct that everyone can do it. The issue is that it fundamentally changes the way the game is played and the way owners draft. The game should be a combination of best drafter, best manager and letting the players' stats decide the outcome of games not a system of who can exploit a fatigue loophole the best.

Posted by frazzman80 on 3/27/2013 12:45:00 AM (view original):Just because it is the same for everyone doesn't mean it is correct.

My problem is that owners are drafting far fewer PAs than they should, playing players fatgiued to 12-18% above their PAs/162 and see little to no performance drop off playing fatigued players. Owners who do not manage their fatigue properly should not get quality performances from players that are fatigued. It runs contrary to reality.

Plus, when you combine cost savings of drafting higher OPS players with fewer PAs/162 and no real need to draft or pay for bench, owners who use this fatigue strategy are using a loophole to take advantage of the system. You are correct that everyone can do it. The issue is that it fundamentally changes the way the game is played and the way owners draft. The game should be a combination of best drafter, best manager and letting the players' stats decide the outcome of games not a system of who can exploit a fatigue loophole the best.

Fundamental change implies that it's different than it has been...

afaik... there's always been a 10% cushion of fatigue... it's just the way this game is, period... yes, it means you don't need to draft quite as many PAs...

But since everyone's in the same boat, it doesn't really affect the gameplay in the sense of team quality, especially as it's not hard to draft that way...

What is does do, granted, is bias the game in favor of slightly lower-PA hitters, and make some of the very very high PA hitters hard to play in capped leagues... but I play uncapped leagues almost as often as capped leagues, so maybe I don't care as much... and actually I'm pretty sure this is a net increase in the number of players that are playable in capped leagues...

-- Wouldn't any increase in the fatigue penalty effectively punish owners who are good at putting together an offense? Imagine 2 owners spending exactly the same $ on exactly the same # of PAs. One owner puts together a team that scores 4 runs per game, the other puts together a team that scores 5 runs per game. (I actually think this is a very conservative estimate of how much variation one can get in offense, especially if you allow for different parks). An increase in the fatigue penalty would disproportionately impact the owner of the 5 R/G team, because his players will accumulate PA much faster. This seems fundamentally unfair to me. He has not "gamed" the system by buying fewer PA...he has "succeeded" in the system by putting together a very good team...why should he be punished for doing so?

-- Wouldn't any increase in the fatigue penalty create an even greater incentive than there is now for owners to rush to Safecos/Petcos/Astrodomes? I think there is way way way too much use of these negative-offense parks already, and I would hate to see any major change to the engine that further encourages their use. Of course, I've long lobbied for the idea that you should have to pay for parks the same way you pay for players, with higher price tags the farther away you get from a park factor of 1.00, but as long as parks are "free" I think we need to be very careful about creating greater incentive for the negative-offense parks.

-- Wouldn't any increase in the fatigue penalty ultimately lead to an even greater reliance on the cookie pitchers? If owners have to buy more PA in order to avoid fatigue penalties, they will have to spend a greater percentage of their salary on offense than they do now. In an 80M league, if I can spend 36-44M on pitching and still be competitive anywhere in that range, then there are many strategies I can use to build a pitching staff. Those of us who eschew the Josses of the world (I think I've used 1908 Joss in an OL exactly once in the past 3 years) have other options to build a strong staff. If I have to spend more of my team salary on hitting in order to buy more PAs (or buy better hitters, so that they will still be adequate even with a fatigue penalty), then I have that much less $ to spend on my pitching staff, which almost requires me to only buy the highest value/$ pitchers. I would hate to see any change in the model that led to an even greater reliance on deadball era pitching.

Posted by boogerlips on 3/25/2013 11:36:00 AM (view original):If a team full of 90% hitters only scores 90% of the runs they normally would, how is that gaming the system?

I think this is simplest common sense approach to this topic. A team fatigued at 90% should score 90% of the runs they would have scored otherwise. A team fatigued at 80% should score 80% of the runs they would have scored otherwise and so on. Any logic to the contrary is simply something I'm not capable of understanding. If there is disagreement that the current system achieves this, thats one thing, but to suggest that a team fatigued at 90% should score only 50% of the runs they would have scored otherwise seems absurd to me. Just my opinion.

It's great discussion and I appreciate it as a person who really cares about the fake baseball game that I play.

The point about a team that performs better and scores more runs being hurt by an increased fatigue model makes sense. This can be offset a bit by the the PA/game cap in place where hitters have more than 6 PAs, but would be a problem if you just happen to get a ton of PAs over a multiple game span. Ballparks would also have a huge affect as you are 100% correct that pitchers parks would help prevent fatigue while hitters parks would promote it for hittersand that would also be a negative to increased fatigue measurements.

On your point booger...what I'm seeing in the leagues I'm playing is that teams fatgiued at 95% are still scoring 100% of runs and teams at 90% are likely scoring 95+% of runs. I'm not saying that a team at 90% should score 50% of runs...I'd like it to be more like 80%.

My fundamental thing is stil this: No one plays fatigued pitchers. NO ONE. Why? Because pitching a fatigued pitcher is a roll of the dice, and often they perform HORRIBLY. Plus, pitching them while fatigued sends them into a fatigue spiral and it takes multiple games of rest to get them back to a fatigue level that makes them a usable pitcher again.

This is not the case with hitters. Marginally fatgiued hitters (read 92% plus) are not a roll of the dice. They perform relatively similar to their 100% stats. They can play game after game and only decrease small percentage points over the course of multiple games. They don't require multiple games of rest to them back to a fatigue level that is usable. It is only after abuse (read below 92%) that it is a roll of the dice to play them, and by then you have abused the player in my mind. A 500 PA/162 player is on pace for 595 PAs/162 at 91%.

That is my issue. Fatigue for pitchers works in my mind because you can't fatigue your pitchers and still expect to get decent performances out of them. But with hitters, you can fatigue them down quite a bit (18% more PAs than real life) and still use t hem every game with little to no negative impact. I just want to see a fatigue model that works for hitters the same way it does for pitchers. If that means a steeper fatigue curve then I support that.

For the record, in every league I'm in (and this has been since I first started playing) I play both hitters and pitchers down to 90%. In certain circumstances I'll drop both down to 85%. In my fatigue tests right now I'm playing all my pitchers down to 80% and in certain circumstances have been playing some down to 60% (both with better success than you'd imagine - see Kevin Brown on the league I linked to on page 1).

Posted by boogerlips on 3/25/2013 11:36:00 AM (view original):If a team full of 90% hitters only scores 90% of the runs they normally would, how is that gaming the system?

I think this is simplest common sense approach to this topic. A team fatigued at 90% should score 90% of the runs they would have scored otherwise. A team fatigued at 80% should score 80% of the runs they would have scored otherwise and so on. Any logic to the contrary is simply something I'm not capable of understanding. If there is disagreement that the current system achieves this, thats one thing, but to suggest that a team fatigued at 90% should score only 50% of the runs they would have scored otherwise seems absurd to me. Just my opinion.

My fundamental thing is stil this: No one plays fatigued pitchers. NO ONE. Why? Because pitching a fatigued pitcher is a roll of the dice, and often they perform HORRIBLY. Plus, pitching them while fatigued sends them into a fatigue spiral and it takes multiple games of rest to get them back to a fatigue level that makes them a usable pitcher again.

Can't speak for anyone else, but this is definitely not true of my teams. I routinely pitch guys who are in the low 90s...and I would wager I am involved in many more PAs where I have a pitcher below 99 than a hitter below 99. If not, it's close.

My fundamental thing is stil this: No one plays fatigued pitchers. NO ONE. Why? Because pitching a fatigued pitcher is a roll of the dice, and often they perform HORRIBLY. Plus, pitching them while fatigued sends them into a fatigue spiral and it takes multiple games of rest to get them back to a fatigue level that makes them a usable pitcher again.

Can't speak for anyone else, but this is definitely not true of my teams. I routinely pitch guys who are in the low 90s...and I would wager I am involved in many more PAs where I have a pitcher below 99 than a hitter below 99. If not, it's close.

I don't like starting pitchers at anything other than 100, but that's only because I know it'll get worse as the game goes on... have done it on occasion though... but a relief pitcher... my auto rest is 95, just like it is for hitters... I got no problem throwing a 95 out there for 3 outs if the situation calls for it...

FWIW, pitcher appearance fatigue and in-game fatigue are different. A pitcher starting a game at 85% will see his in-game fatigue decline very slowly from the 85% starting figure. A SP with RL IP/G of 7 will be able to go 5 innings or so before in-game fatigue starts to plummet. The effect on his recovery will be bigger than on his effectiveness.

If a fatigued player(95%) goes 2-4 with a 2B and 2 RBIs everybody jumps up and says "why did he do so good, he is fatigued" - but maybe the fatigue factor DID set in - maybe if he was at 100% he would have gone 3-4 with 2 2Bs and 4 RBIs. Do we really expect fatigued players to go 0-4 with 3 Ks every game?

We have no way of knowing how/if fatigue played a part in each PA. WIS should come up with a fatigue symbol that would show up in the PBP, just like the +/- does